1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink set for ink jet recording, comprising a cyan ink composition, a yellow ink composition, and a magenta ink composition, and a method for ink jet recording, comprising depositing a reaction solution and an ink composition onto a recording medium to perform printing.
2. Background Art
Ink jet recording is a printing method wherein droplets of an ink composition are flied and deposited on recording media such as paper to perform printing. This method has a feature that high-resolution and high-quality images can be printed at a high speed with a relatively inexpensive apparatus.
Ink compositions for use in ink jet recording generally comprise water as a main component and a colorant component and a wetting agent such as glycerin, for example, for clogging preventive purposes, added to the water. Water soluble dyes have hitherto been extensively used as the colorant for the ink composition for ink jet recording, for example, from the viewpoints of their high level of chroma, their abundance of usable types, and their solubility in water.
On the other hand, dyes are sometimes poor in various properties such as lightfastness and waterfastness. Accordingly, printed matters printed using dye-based ink compositions have poor lightfastness and waterfastness. The waterfastness has been improved by using ink jet specialty recording paper comprising an ink adsorptive layer. However, it is difficult to say that the waterfastness of printed matter using plain paper is satisfactory.
Pigments are superior in lightfastness and waterfastenss to dyes, and studies have recently been made on the utilization of pigments as a colorant for an ink composition for ink jet recording, from the viewpoint of improving the lightfastness and waterfastness. Pigments are generally insoluble in water. Accordingly, when pigments are used in a water-based ink composition, prior to the preparation of an ink composition, the step of mixing the pigment with a resin called a dispersant and the like and adding the mixture to water to stably disperse the mixture in water should be provided.
Further, when the utilization of pigments as a colorant for inks for ink jet recording is taken into consideration, pigments are superior in lightfastness and waterfastness to dyes, but on the other hand, the number of types of usable coloring materials is smaller than that in pigments. When pigments are actually utilized as an ink for ink jet recording, in addition to lightfastness and waterfastness, hue should also be satisfactorily studied. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 345080/2000 proposes a yellow ink composition comprising a combination of a specific pigment having excellent lightfastness and two specific pigments having excellent color development. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 120956/1998 proposes an ink set comprising a combination of specific pigment-containing cyan, magenta, and yellow ink compositions, which ink set can realize good images excellent in lightfastness and waterfastness, as well as in particularly hue.